People go to the big urban centres because they have a quality of life, a quality of intellectual inquiry in the big urban centres that you don't necessarily have in smaller, rural communities. I've got loads of friends and relatives that live there. People like living there, bringing up their kids there and all that stuff, but it'd be the death of me. I couldn't be in a small town, ten minutes I'd enjoy it, and then I'd get fed up because you're so constrained and constricted by it.

Once you've been with each other in a primal, shagging state, it's hard to talk about the weather.

I wanted to capture the excitement of house music, almost like a four-four beat, and the best way to do that was to use a language that was rhythmic and performative.

I enjoy the freedom of the blank page.

Love does not exist, it's like religion, the state wants you to believe in that kind of crap so they can control you, and f**k your head up.

I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.

In some ways, you can say that at any time in any writer's career: 'He might have run out of ideas.'